I have used QGIS and can recommend it, the software is powerful, flexible and free. There is a learning curve since no GIS software I have tried can pull off the trick of being powerful, flexible and easy. However unlike many open source projects the documentation for QGIS is very good and there are stacks of high quality learning materials available on line. Of course if you have used ARC GIS before then you have a head start as the basic GIS concepts will be familiar.